Hollow Leg return to Las Rosas: An interview with Brent Lynch

By Olivia McAuley

This Labor Day weekend is set to be a heavy one, with a smackdown of a show hitting our favorite watering hole/venue Las Rosas. The free show will be kicking off at 9 pm and is definitely not one to be missed.

Featuring local powerhouses like Bleeth, fresh off the release of their debut full-length Geomancer, and the quintessential sludge outfit Shroud Eater; the night will also welcome out-of-towners Ether and the much anticipated and long-awaited return of Hollow Leg.

In anticipation of the night, I gave Brent Lynch (co-founder and guitarist of Hollow Leg) a call, to get a brief history of the band, and catch up on what they’ve have been up to during their conspicuous absence from Miami! Excitingly, their return is two-fold, as they are set to release the first track off their new album this Friday. If you can’t wait till Saturday to hear some nuanced sludge, get to downloading Hollow Leg’s new stuff on Bandcamp or stream it on Spotify!

Take a look!

Hollow Leg was originally a duo at its conception, turned quartet, how did you guys find each other? What did that process look like?

Well, when we were a duo we started playing out with a band called Junior Bruce from Orlando, and quickly made friends with those guys. A couple of them, Tom and Scott who are in Hollow Leg now – who have been in Hollow Leg for about 6 years at this point – they ended up recording some demos for us in 2010. Then, working on our first record, when we recorded as a two-piece, they did that one for us as well. We just had such a great time with those guys, and they just really brought out the best in the music. Their drummer ended up passing away, and so they weren’t doing anything for a while and we asked them to join us. We had some tours and I wasn’t really enjoying doing the vocals. I had blown my voice out on a couple of them so I really wanted some help in that department. So we bought them in, and it’s been great ever since. We just kind of upped what we were doing as a four-piece. We were able to do a lot more musically.

It was kind of fateful in a way…

Absolutely.

To me Florida is the very unexpected home for a thriving metal scene, are you guys all natives?

Scott was born and I think spent the first 6 or 7 years of his life in Chicago, and I was born and raised in Massachusetts. But everybody else besides me pretty much grew up in Florida, is from Florida, and has always lived in Florida. I grew up in Massachusetts and I moved around the country a lot so I’m new to Florida.

Do you think musically Florida is specific and has it influenced your music at all…or you?

Yeah definitely. We’re all fans of that New Orleans sound, that southern, heavy, Sabbath influenced thing, coupled with Mississippi Delta blues. And that’s all down here. The Skynyrd and Allman Brother band kinda sound, that’s very Florida, and that’s definitely apart of what we do. And then the bands that we play with down here are great too, and we’re always influenced by the other Florida bands that are around now for sure.

What have you guys got going on now, what new stuff can we look forward to?

We’ve been working on a new record for the past 6 months or so, and we’ve just finished and turned it in last month. We’re really happy with it, we do everything ourselves in our own studio in Deland and then we send it out to be mixed and mastered – Crown (their 3rd full length) and Murder (re-released EP) were both done by Sanford Parker in Chicago, and this time around we worked with our friend Ken Stump from a band called Wo Fat in Dallas Texas, and he did the mix and master on the new one. It came out really good, we’re really excited for it and that will be out at the beginning of 2019.

I feel like people love giving a ‘sounds-like’ equivalent when talking about bands, and you guys have gotten a lot of Sabbath, Sleep, and Eyehategod. But who are your top musical influences for your latest work, and has it changed over the years?

Yeah definitely, and especially with our new our new drummer John joining the band, we have slightly different influences than we did before. John and I have a lot of the same taste, and all four of us kinda grew up in that 90’s, alt-rock, grunge-era stuff. Then going back even further to when we were first getting into music it was thrash, it was the big 4 and the classic English metal bands. So that’s our influences more, that classic English, and then also that grunge sound of the 90’s, with bands like Jane’s Addiction, Faith, No More and Failure and stuff like that. Then we all got into the hardcore scene a little later.

And do you have any upcoming tour plans?

Well, this weekend we’ll be down your way, we’re doing a couple of South Florida shows. Then in October, we’ll be heading out for about a week doing some Midwest dates and a couple of East Coast dates in Baltimore and Raleigh NC. But everything else is in the Midwest, we’re going to be doing a festival appearance at the Doomed and Stoned Fest in Indianapolis.

This is your first show in Miami in a while, right?

We haven’t been to Miami in probably 5 years, so it been a while. I think last time we were there we played in Ft Lauderdale, right when the last record came out, so that was in 2016 I think. When the original version of crowned first came out. But Miami proper we haven’t been to in about 5 years.

Do you like playing down here?

Absolutely we always have a great time. Lots of great bands down there who are friends of ours, and we’ve done tours with bands from Miami a bunch.

Who are your favorite Floridian bands to see live?

Shroud Eater is definitely one, Ether’s another, Bleeth is a great band too. From our area we love a band called Yashira, they’re always a lot of fun, and our old drummer Tim has a great new band called Unearthly Child. Of course, the other guys in Hollow leg have Junior Bruce and Bloodlet which they also play in. I know I’m forgetting people, but there are tonnes.

Have you ever played with any of the bands on the lineup before?

Oh yeah lots, we’ve played with all those bands before. Both Shroud Eater and Ether especially, and we’ve toured with Shroud Eater before. They’re actually going to be playing the festival in Indianapolis with us in October. So yeah we’ve done a bunch with those bands over the years.

How would you describe your live show, what are you trying to transmit to the audience when you play?

Umm, it’s loud haha. We try to bring a good positive energy. And you know, usually, when there’s a good crowd about, and people are drinking and having fun it’s a good time. But yeah its a loud one.

Remember Y’all, don’t miss your chance to see Hollow Leg’s return to Miami is what sure to be a great and “loud… yeah, definitely loud” show. And again, don’t forget to buy up their latest release tomorrow on Bandcamp or stream it on Spotify! See you guys there!